


For The Love of A Doctor

by PureShores



Series: Matters of the Heart [1]
Category: New Amsterdam (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureShores/pseuds/PureShores
Summary: They might live on different sides of the ocean, but Catherine Sharpe knows when her daughter is in love. She just hopes it will work out better this time. Outsider POV of Helen and Max's relationship.
Relationships: Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe
Series: Matters of the Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702600
Comments: 27
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this story is set about a year into the future from now. We don't know much about Helen's family. The one time I recall her mentioning her mother has been in past tense, but for the purposes of this story she is very much alive.
> 
> To be frank this is just some feelgood fluff that I needed, and I hope you'll enjoy.

Once a week, Catherine Sharpe Skypes her daughter. Ever since Helen moved to New York, even though she couldn’t be prouder of her, she worries that she’s missing out on her life. She catches her on TV sometimes, during a ‘Dr Helen’ segment, and her daughter comes home at Christmas when she can, but it’s not the same as being with her, knowing what she gets up to in her day-to-day life, and the people she spends time with. So, they Skype, once a week, sometimes twice if one of them has important news to share, in an attempt to bridge the seemingly impossible gap between their respective lives in London and New York.

It’s during one such Skype session that she finally manages to put a face to a name she’s heard Helen mention what feels like a thousand times over. Helen’s in the middle of describing some underground concert she’d been to the previous night, when from her end of the line there’s a loud bang, which makes both of them jump in fright. Catherine sees her daughter’s eyes flicker away from her to the source of the disturbance, and she lets out a sigh.

“Did you ever hear of knocking?” she admonishes the intruder irritably. “This is a private call.”

Catherine can hear a male voice respond, indistinctly, and watches with interest as Helen rolls her eyes, but smiles all the same. Clearly, despite her snappish tone, the visitor is a welcome one. A friend? A colleague? Dare she even hope a significant other?

No, Helen would have told her if she was seeing someone. She’d told her about the doctor she’d been dating last year after all, but she was hazy on the details when it all went wrong. All she’d say was, ‘he wasn’t the right one.’

“We’ll get lunch as soon as I’m done with my call,” Helen is saying now to whoever it is. “Give me ten minutes, Max.” Catherine’s curiosity is immediately piqued. ‘Max’ can only be Max Goodwin, Helen’s boss. She talks about him a lot. The way she tells it, he’s all but managed to turn the hospital upside down since he took the reins, but for the most part, all the changes are for the better. She can tell by the way Helen talks about him that she thinks the world of him, and that they’re incredibly close. She’s glad Helen has someone to confide in. Even as a child, she was something of a lone wolf, driven and focused, with no time for anyone less clever than herself, which was most people. But it seems she’s found a kindred spirit in Max.

She’s dying to get a glimpse of him.

Max speaks again, this time he must be fully inside the room because she can hear his words clearly. “Lunch waits for no phone call Helen,” he says, then pauses. “Who are you talking to anyway? It can’t be patient-related or else you’d have yelled something about confidentiality and kicked me out already.”

“It’s really none of your business,” says Helen with a small chuckle, and Catherine suspects on some level, that her daughter has actually forgotten she’s there; she’s so focused on Max.

“Well how I do I know it’s not some other hospital, trying to poach you?” Max’s tone is light, but Catherine can detect a note of real fear behind it. She knows that Helen was considering a change of hospital, not so very long ago. She never got the full details of the situation, and when she never heard anything about it again, had assumed the idea was just a passing fancy. Evidently this is not the case, if Helen had told her boss about her intent to leave, she must have been considering it more seriously than she’d realized. She gathers there’s a lot more to the story than Helen told her, because she’s always been happy at New Amsterdam and has never had any inclination to leave.

“Don’t be stupid. Of course it isn’t.”

Max snorts. “Come on, Helen, you think I don’t know that there’s a hundred hospitals all over the globe that would kill to have you. As they should,” he adds. “But I- “

“I’m not going anywhere, Max,” Helen interrupts, gently. “Don’t you trust me?”

“You know I do. With _everything_.”

They fall silent for a moment, and Catherine wonders what is passing between them. Even though she’s not physically in the room with them, she can feel it. She can see it in her daughter’s eyes; there’s a softness there. She’s never looked at anyone but Muhammed that way. And she knows, this relationship, in whatever form it’s in, is important to Helen. It’s serious. She dearly hopes that Helen’s feelings (whatever they are) are mutual. She’s already had to pick herself back up once after tragedy struck, she doesn’t want her to have to do it again.

“Come here,” Helen suddenly says, gesturing off screen to where Max is presumably standing. There’s a rustling sound as he obeys, and then, there he is, side by side with Helen, peering at the computer screen. Catherine smiles, and waves at him. “This is my mum,” says Helen, to a bewildered Max. “Mum, this is Max Goodwin, my boss, and completely incapable of minding his own business.”

Unable to let that one go, Max turns to Helen with mock-hurt and Catherine takes the opportunity to size him up. He’s handsome, has a strong build, and big blue eyes. Helen’s told her about his cancer, but there doesn’t seem to be any trace of it now, save for the darkish circles under his eyes. Helen says at one point he was on the brink of death, but you’d never guess that now, seeing him for the first time. He’s bickering cheerfully with Helen, smirking, with a sparkle in his eye.

She decides she likes the look of him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr Goodwin,” she says, partly to remind them, once again, that she’s still there. They both give a little start of surprise and then turn back towards the screen and she represses a smile. They look like a couple that have just been caught out. Max recovers first. “Likewise, Mrs. Sharpe, I can see where Helen gets her good looks from.” He chuckles when mother and daughter roll their eyes simultaneously at the trite remark.

“Shut up, Max,” says Helen, but without any real heat, more like she’s addressing a much-loved, but badly-behaved house pet.

“I have to say, I’m disappointed,” says Catherine. “Helen told me you were an innovator, Dr Goodwin. And that old line is the best you’ve got?”

Helen lets out a snort of amusement. To his credit, Max is taken is aback for only the minutest of moments before he grins at Catherine. “And now I see how she got so good at putting me in my place.” He turns to Helen once again. “You know, this explains a _lot_.”

Helen swats him on the arm.

“Are you satisfied now?” she asks. “Convinced I’m not about to run off to some other hospital with a bigger budget and a less irritating medical director?”

“I’m a _brilliant_ medical director,” says Max, with some asperity. “You’ve said so yourself.”

Helen doesn’t miss a beat. “Most brilliant people are irritating, Max. Comes with the territory.”

“But you admit I’m brilliant though, right?”

“Get out of my office,” Helen orders him, but not without affection. “Let me finish my conversation in peace and then we’ll go for lunch.”

“As you wish,” says Max, getting to his feet, before quickly ducking back down so Catherine can see him on the screen again. “Ma’am, it was an honour and a privilege. We’ll have to get together sometime so you can tell me what Sharpe was like as a kid.”

“Out,” says Helen to him immediately, as though she’s afraid Catherine will start unloading all her deep dark secrets at any moment.

“Aw I bet you were adorable as a kid, don’t be embarrassed...”

“I said, out.” Helen repeats, and finally Max obeys. Catherine hears him shuffle across the room and the door shut behind him. Helen looks torn between exasperation and looking as though she wants to laugh.

“Is he always like that?” asks Catherine. Helen chuckles. “He’s usually worse. When he gets an idea in his head, you best not get in his way.”

“Sounds like you,” Catherine observes. She’s not entirely sure of the exact nature of what she’s just witnessed, but she can certainly see why they get along so well. There’s an easy, natural banter between them, the kind that only exists between people who really get each other, on a profound level. It’s a rare thing, but so precious, and she’s glad her daughter has found it for herself.

“Oh, there’s only one Max Goodwin,” says Helen standing up to remove her white doctor’s coat. “I think that’s all the world can handle.”

* * *

A few weeks later, her daughter texts over a photo of herself dressed for the annual hospital fundraiser. Catherine knows she’s excited about going because she so rarely gets to get dressed up and enjoy herself. She looks stunning.

_“Max and I are going together,”_ Helen writes. _“Will I embarrass him?”_

On the contrary, Catherine has little doubt that he’ll need to pick his jaw up off the floor when he sees her. But she’s more interested in them ‘going together.’ Are they going together in the sense that they’ll simply share a cab there and back and knock back a few drinks together? Or are they _going together_? Properly. Like a couple?

She doesn’t think they are a couple, not yet. Helen would have told her that. But the way people behave at big functions like this can belie how they feel about each other. She finds she’s very curious but she’s not about to hammer her daughter with questions and put her off her equilibrium before the event.

_“He’ll be blown away,”_ she texts back, because he will.

She waits, but there’s no reply.

The next day she’s sitting in the living room, browsing the internet on her tablet. She initially logged on to check on the progress of an Amazon delivery she’s waiting on, but now that’s done she’s simply surfing idly. After a while, she gets a notification from Facebook, it’s a friend’s birthday, which she’d regrettably forgotten. She clicks on, leaves the obligatory greetings and goes to log out when she notices a post from New Amsterdam about the fundraiser. (She follows the page to keep updated about what’s going on in her daughter’s world, Helen tends to edit a fair bit.)

There’s a gallery from the fundraiser. Most of the pictures are of presumably important people in evening gowns and tuxedos, lifting glasses of champagne to the camera in an unimpressed sort of way, like they do this all the time. Which they probably do. About twenty pictures in, she finds what she’s looking for. There’s Helen, on Max’s arm, smiling serenely. They look exactly how a medical director of a major hospital and his most trusted confidante are supposed to look, composed and competent.

She clicks to the next photo. This time Max is in the greatest prominence, standing on a small dais, giving a speech. After a moment she spots Helen in the background, now nursing a glass of champagne, watching him speak with a fond smile. Catherine now knows she wasn’t imagining the softness in her eyes when she spoke to them both on that fateful Skype call. Here it is, captured in a photograph, absolute proof.

She wonders if Helen realizes that she looks at him that way, like it brings her such joy just to be near him. She wonders if he’s noticed it. How he feels about it. Helen told her he lost his wife recently, and that he’s been trying to balance his grief with single fatherhood. She’s been trying to support him as much as he’ll allow, but it’s been tough.

“I don’t want to overstep,” she told Catherine fretfully, on the phone one night. “I just want him to know I’m here for him. I just wish he’d let me.”

She clicks through the rest of the gallery, through picture after picture of nondescript people in formal wear and thinks she’s seen the last of them, until she reaches the final picture. The subject of the photo is some other New Amsterdam staff members, taken near the dance floor. She vaguely recognizes Lauren Bloom, who has been friends with Helen for years, and Vijay Kapoor who has been there since before Helen's time. But what captures her interest is the couple just to the left of them, standing a little closer than the traditional waltz hold dictates, gazing into one another’s eyes, totally unaware of the world around them.

They look like a couple in love. Even if they don’t know it yet.

* * *

She first meets Max in person about six months later, while she’s visiting Helen in New York. She’s been looking forward to the trip a long time; it’s been too long since they’ve seen each other in person. Helen hasn’t got time to take an extended leave of absence from the hospital (and besides, she’s hesitant to leave Max for too long; apparently the other staff all claim that he’s even more reckless than usual without her around to steady him) so they settle for a long weekend. The plan is they’ll meet at New Amsterdam on Friday afternoon and then head straight off for dinner and a Broadway show.

When Catherine arrives, she takes in her surroundings with awe. She knows the Dam, as Helen affectionately refers to it, is a city unto itself, but she didn’t quite grasp what that meant until she got here. It’s an insulated, thriving community all its own. It’s no wonder Helen loves it here, a place so full of colour and life could never be boring.

She pulls out her phone to reread Helen’s text for the umpteenth time. It provides directions to her office, but there are so many doors and passages that Catherine is utterly flummoxed. After a few minutes, she spots a sign pointing toward Oncology. That’s good enough for her. If she keeps heading for the oncology department, she’s bound to find her daughter eventually.

She sets off, following the signs, marveling anew at the sheer size of the place. The hallways are teeming with people, doctors, nurses, patients and their visitors. Twice she has to leap aside as a gurney comes flying down the hallway flanked by nurses, who are shrieking for people to get out of the way. She tries to call Helen, but it goes straight to voicemail; she’s probably with a patient.

She turns a corner into yet another hallway and bumps-literally-into a nurse coming the other way. The impact knocks her off her feet and she hits the ground hard. The young nurse, horrified, is full of apologies, and immediately offers to check her over. The gesture is kind, but she’s not hurt and with everyone staring at her, Catherine just wants to get up and escape from the embarrassing situation.

“Allow me.”

A hand appears in her periphery and she seizes it gratefully, allowing it to pull her to her feet. As she straightens up, she sees the nurse dash away ashamedly, then turns to her savior. She’s both surprised and not surprised to find that it’s Max Goodwin. Surprised because what are the odds, in a hospital this size, of accidentally bumping into the medical director in a random hallway? Not surprised because from what Helen’s told her, Max is a sucker for a damsel (or anyone really) in distress.

He doesn’t seem to recognize her, as he repeats his nurse’s apologies and offers to check her for injury. She can’t blame him; he’s only ever seen her for thirty seconds on a Skype call months ago. He’s taller than she expected, with a kind of urgency about him, like he thinks he needs to be in about eight different places at once. He speaks quickly, words spilling out, but full of genuine concern. “If you’re sure you’re not hurt at all,” he’s saying, “where are you heading? How can I help?”

“I’m looking for the Oncology department,” she tells him. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

The light dawns on his face, and he grins at her, a smile so wide and disarming it catches her a little off guard. Men with smiles like that are dangerous; she knows that from experience. “Mrs. Sharpe!” he exclaims. “Helen said you were coming today. I was actually just heading to see her myself, come along with me.”

That’s how she finds herself hurrying along in his wake, as he strides quickly through the hospital corridors. She’s struck by how many people smile at or call out greetings to him as they pass by; he is clearly beloved by the staff. That’s rare for a man in his position. He moves so quickly she’s having trouble keeping up with him, a fact he notices after a minute when he glances over his shoulder to see her trailing behind. He immediately slows his pace, looking chastened.

“I’m sorry,” he says meekly. “Sharpe’s always telling me to slow down. She says I walk like there’s a wild animal after me.” He chuckles. “It’s just a big hospital, you know? With a lot to do in it.”

“It must be a big job,” Catherine pants, as they reach a bank of elevators.

Max nods. “It is.”

He’s quiet until they board the elevator and the doors close. Then he clears his throat, nervously. “While we’re alone for a moment, there’s something I want to say,” he ventures, with a tremor in his voice. “I’m sure you already know this, but you’ve raised an incredible woman.”

Something warms inside her. She’s proud of Helen and always has been. Lots of people over the years have told her how wonderful her daughter is, and she always appreciates it. But she can see it in his eyes, he _means_ it, in the deepest way a person can.

“I know,” she says with a smile.

“I wouldn’t be standing here without her,” he continues. “I’d be lost. And I just wanted you to know that I appreciate her, and that I’m grateful for her every day.”

It’s wonderful to hear how highly he thinks of Helen, it really is, but she is the one who needs to hear this.

“Dr Goodwin am I the one you should be telling this to?” she asks, as gently as she can.

He chuckles, wryly. “I try. But sometimes, when she’s standing there in front of me, I just can’t get the words out.” He sounds ashamed, almost angry with himself at this admission, and it makes her warm to him all the more. A man who acknowledges his faults and strives to be better; she likes that.

“Keep trying,” she says, softly. “Because I know she feels the same way about you.” She knows it from the way Helen talks about him with a mixture of fond exasperation and awe. Her determination to be there for him no matter how much he pushes her away. Helen doesn’t love easily, but she does love fiercely. She did it with Muhammed, and she’s doing it now.

Max falls silent, presumably to ponder what she’s said, and she lets him, as the elevator doors open.

She’s aware that what she’s doing now is a form of meddling, something she promised Helen not to do again, after a disaster with an ex-boyfriend in her early twenties. She’s aware that Helen and Max are adults, that they can and should figure things out in their own way, but she just can’t resist giving them a little push.

Anyone who can make Helen smile like she did in those photos from the fundraiser is someone she wants in her daughter’s life.

She’s got no cause to doubt her decision when they finally catch up to Helen. Her daughter greets her and then falls naturally into step beside Max, whose ground-eating stride kicked in again the moment he spotted her, (awarding Catherine the amusing sight of the other staff promptly diving out of his way as he raced toward her.) He escorts them back to the elevator, keeping up a constant dialogue with Helen the whole way, something about a patient they’re both treating. She marvels at how in synch they seem to be; they’re literally finishing each other’s sentences. And then suddenly, they’ve come to a decision, grinning at each other. As the elevator arrives, Max bids them goodbye with a wide smile and a “have a great weekend ladies.”

As the door closes, Catherine exhales loudly and Helen chuckles. “Yeah, that’s the Max Goodwin effect,” she says. “He can be…a lot.”

Another doctor standing in the corner snorts at the remark. “That’s an understatement, Dr Sharpe,” he says.

* * *

Their weekly Skype call is winding down. They’ve covered everything from Helen’s work, to Catherine’s neighbour’s insufferable yappy dog. From rent prices in New York, to EastEnders. It’s just been a normal cozy catchup between mother and daughter, only through a computer screen, and for the billionth time, Catherine laments the fact that this all they have, for now.

Helen has seemed distracted, this whole time. That’s not altogether unusual, she always has so much on her plate to begin with, and her duties as Max’s deputy can be needed at a moment’s notice, but this is different. She keeps glancing offscreen at what Catherine presumes is the door, apparently keeping an eye out for someone.

“Honey are you all right?” she asks, and Helen seems to come to herself slightly. “Yes,” she answers, and then smiles. “Never better, actually. I’ve got a date.”

Something about the way she says it makes Catherine suspect the identity of this date, but she knows from experience that if she asks too many questions, Helen will clam up; she’s private that way. So, she reins in her enthusiasm.

“Oh?” she asks, casually. Helen pauses, and now Catherine can see it, a quiet joy that seems to come from within her, even through a computer screen.

“He loves me, Mum,” she finally says, almost in a whisper. “He told me so.”

There’s no need to ask who ‘he’ is. It’s written all over her face. She looks simply radiant. It’s a beautiful look on her. Catherine wishes more than ever that they were together right now so she could throw her arms around her and squeeze her tight.

“Oh honey, that’s wonderful news.” She tries to infuse each word with the utmost sincerity. It is wonderful news. “Tell me everything.”

But Helen shakes her head. “I can’t tell you everything,” she says apologetically. ”It was _our_ moment. Just ours.” Catherine understands, even though she’s disappointed. There are some things that couples need to stay between just them, and the first ‘I love you’ is one of them. But still, she’s dying to know how it happened.

“Tell me something, then,” she wheedles and Helen laughs.

“All you need to know is that he made a complete mess of it,” she says, affectionately. “He blurted it out at probably _the_ most inopportune moment he could find. And I had to save his bumbling ass once again.” But then she smiles, and it’s the kind of smile that only appears when recalling a cherished memory. “But it was _us_. And it was perfect.”

On Helen’s end, there’s the sound of the door opening. She looks up and the brilliant smile she gives the newcomer leaves Catherine in no doubt (if she’d ever had any to begin with) of who has entered the room.

“Hey,” Helen greets him.

“Ready to go?”

“Absolutely,” he answers. “There’s a table at a great little Indian place I know with our name on it.”

Helen frowns slightly. “Where’s Luna?”

“With a sitter. This night’s all ours, Doctor Sharpe.” There’s a definite _something_ in his voice that tells Catherine it’s time to ring off. Quickly.

She bids Helen a hasty goodbye and ends the call, though yet again, she doubts either of them have noticed. The next day, she opens a new bank account, and entitles it ‘New York Wedding Trip.’ Sure, it’s a little premature, but she’s got a good feeling about this. Max will do her very nicely for a son in law, and in any case, it never hurts to be prepared.


	2. On The Same Page At Last (A Missing Scene)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, this chapter details that first 'I love you' that I couldn't put into the original story. I absolutely loved writing this chapter, and I really hope you like it.

They’re running through the hospital halls, dodging around everyone else. They’re late, yet again. This patient’s condition was a tough one to diagnose, but now they have and he’s finally responding to the treatment. Max popped his head in to chat to him on his way to meet her, ostensibly for two minutes, which turned into twenty and would have been more if she hadn’t dragged him out for his meeting with the board. They’re two floors away from where they need to be now, and the elevators are crammed with people, stopping on every floor. If they wait for them, they’ll never make it.

She grabs him by the arm and drags him through a side door into the stairwell, which is deserted. Her heels click on the stairs as Max trails along unenthusiastically in her wake.

“Remind me again why we’re rushing?” he complains. “You know I hate meetings.”

“Tough,” she says, sternly. “You’re the medical director, it’s part of the gig. And as your deputy I’m making it my personal mission to get you to show up to at least one of them on time.”

“Or we could just blow it off,” he suggests, hopefully. “We can go have a coffee.” That does sound good, she would kill for a caffeine hit right now, but she’s determined not to let him sway her. He’s far too good at that; and it irks her.

He senses her hesitation, and goes in for the kill. The puppy-dog eyes, the smile. "You know you want to," he says. "Come on Helen, play hooky with me."

“It’s your job,” she reiterates. “You’re going. We can get coffee after.”

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to be so bossy about it.”

She smiles to herself. Max can be endearingly childish sometimes about things like this. He’ll whine all day about having to go to a board meeting, but then get in there with some brilliant plan that nobody else could ever have thought of, and blows them all away. She never tires of watching the bewildered faces of the board as he does it.

“Well, someone’s got to keep you in line,” she says, as they reach the sixth-floor landing. “If I don’t, who else will?”

“Nobody could do a better job of it than you,” says Max, now tapping at his cell phone. “From anyone else it’d be really annoying, but not from you.”

“Oh, please.”

“It’s true!” he protests. “You’re not just my deputy, you’re my person. You’ve always got my back. You know I love you.”

“What?” She stops dead, as his words sink in. A moment later, there’s a clatter as his cellphone drops to the ground, bouncing its way down a few stairs before coming to rest. They both wince at the telltale sound of breaking glass.

“Uh, that didn’t come out right…” He looks flustered, shocked at his own words.

“Which part?”

“Um, all of it?” He smiles at her, and she knows he’s trying to brush it off, like they usually do when things get personal. Well, tough luck for him; this time he’s going to have to suck it up and talk to her like an adult. Intentionally or not, he used the “L” word. That’s a gamechanger. He doesn’t get to brush this one off.

“Did you mean it?” It comes out a little more aggressively than she intends, but in her defense, she was beginning to lose hope that he’d ever say those words to her. If he’s just used them as a throwaway comment to prove a point, one of two things will happen. Her heart will break, or she just might kill him.

“Which part?” He thinks he’s so clever, throwing her own words back at her like this. If she didn’t love him so much, she’d hate him. As it is, she’s annoyed with him enough that she fixes him with a fairly formidable glare, and is pleased when he flinches a little.

“You know damn well which part. Did you mean it or not?”

“Well, yeah.” He couldn’t sound less enthusiastic. It’s not very promising, and she feels her heart start to sink, but she’s not about to let him off that easily.

“You don’t sound very sure about that.”

“Of course, I’m sure,” he snaps, rattled. “Do you think I’d say that to just anybody?”

“Sounds to me like you weren’t planning to say it to anyone at all.”

“I was!” he says, defensively. “Just...better. Not like this.” They’re mercifully still alone in the stairwell. She can’t believe he’s picked _now_ to blurt this out, in the least romantic way possible, in a _stairwell_ , when they’re on the way somewhere else. It’s such a Max thing to do, she almost wants to laugh.

Max is watching her intently, foot tapping in agitation. “So, uh, maybe we should talk about this. Do you have any thoughts? Theories? Should I be expecting a sexual harassment lawsuit in the near future? Or maybe a punch in the face?”

She ignores the lame attempt at a joke, a classic Max defense mechanism when he’s feeling anxious. A glance at her own cellphone tells her they’ve got five minutes to get up another flight of stairs and down the hallway to the meeting. They really don’t have time to deal with the ramifications of this right now. But at the same time, she can’t leave him on tenterhooks like this. He’ll never be able to focus in the board meeting. So, she gets down to brass tacks.

“Max, for an intelligent man sometimes you can be so obtuse it astounds me. Of course I love you too. How could you possibly not know that?”

She hasn’t been at all subtle. Akash knew. Their colleagues know. Her mum doesn’t even live in the same country and she knows. Max is brilliant and she spends more time with him than anyone else. He’s not an idiot; he’s not blind. He _has_ to know.

He looks uncomfortable. “I…hoped,” he says quietly. “But I didn’t want to assume anything…”

“You're an idiot," she says, flatly. "Okay, well let’s just make this perfectly clear then. I love you, Max. I _adore_ you. I want to be with you. Are we clear now?”

She knew this was something from the moment they met. It wasn’t love at first sight, because she’s too much of a pragmatist to be convinced that even exists. But when they stared each other down for the very first time in the doorway of the Dam, she knew he would be a significant person in her life, and not just because he was her boss. Already, there was something else. She could feel it.

That being said, she thinks she fell in love with him pretty quickly after that, pragmatist or not.

Max looks as though somebody has slapped him across the face. Like he’s not quite keeping up with the rapidly changing conversation. But she knows him so well, she can see the tension leaving his shoulders, the worried furrow of his brow smoothing away. He really was nervous about how she was going to react. He really did doubt the way she feels about him. Well, that ends today.

“Crystal, Dr Sharpe,” he says, and he looks relieved, and joyful, and thrilled, and here comes that megawatt smile, and she put it on his face.

The air around them seems to have become lighter. She feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. After all this time of missed connections and false starts, and charged moments that don’t seem to lead anywhere, they are _finally_ on the same page. In an ideal world, this would be the part when she’d fall into his waiting arms and they’d engage in a long, slow kiss. The rest of the world would fall away. They’d have all the time in the world to properly acknowledge the long process that brought them here and revel in the significance of this moment.

But this is the real world. They’re the medical director and deputy medical director of America’s largest public hospital. And they’re late. She glances at her phone again. Three minutes left. They have to get going.

“Right, let’s table this discussion for now, we’re running out of time,” she says. “Go get your phone, we’ve got to move.”

He obeys, cringing as he examines the now-cracked screen of his cellphone, and she hustles them up the next flight of stairs.

She’s been waiting years to kiss him, after all. She can wait a little longer.

However, in true Max fashion, the moment she thinks she’s got things under control he turns the tables on her. She goes to wrench open the door to the seventh floor but can’t, because he’s reaching over her head and holding it closed. She turns around to impress on him, again, that they’re late and that they can talk about this later, but her words die on her lips. He’s impossibly close, and he’s looking at her the same way he did the day Castro finally left. It’s been seared onto her memory ever since.

“This is not how I wanted this conversation to go,” he says, slightly breathless. “I was going to do it right. Charm you, sweep you off your feet…but here we are.”

She decides there’s no point telling him that he’s been doing both of those things practically since the day they met. And now he’s crowding her against the door, looking deep into her eyes, and she’s spellbound, couldn’t move if she wanted to. Christ, those eyes should be illegal. Or at the very least, registerable as a deadly weapon.

“I appreciate we’re on a schedule here,” he says with a chuckle, “but I think we’ve been waiting long enough. God knows, I have, so unless you stop me…”

Then he’s leaning in, and so is she, and their lips meet, and suddenly she’s in that ideal world. There is nothing, and no one else. Just the two of them. Just this moment. And _oh God_ , it was worth waiting for. He kisses like he does everything else, with everything he’s got, and she throws her arms around him as she enthusiastically kisses him back. She could live on a diet of just his kisses. She could kiss him forever.

His hands are in her hair now, her arms are around his neck, her brain is screaming in protest at the lack of oxygen and she doesn’t care. Screw the board, and the meeting, they can go to hell, she wants to stay in this moment forever. She wants to sink down with him onto the floor, crawl on top of him, know what’s it like to have him at her mercy for a change…

And then he’s gently pulling away, but her hands have a mind of their own and they’re grabbing him back, not letting him go. This ends when she says so, damn it, and he can just deal with that. He bends to her will easily enough, and now his whole body is pressed against her, and she’s on fire, and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all because it’s about five seconds away from going out of control. And now his lips are on her neck, and it’s bliss, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted, but somehow in the fog of his kisses and his body heat, and her gasps, a clear thought breaks through. This is a public stairwell, accessible from every floor. And she’s _not_ going to be caught making out with her boss in a public stairwell. The way this hospital gossips, she’ll never be able to look any of her colleagues in the eye ever again.

“Max. We have to stop.”

Somehow, she pulls away, and they’re both panting. As he gazes at her with a mixture of lingering desire and mild shock, it dawns on her that she might have been a _little_ forceful there, with the grabbing and all. Though if he had any idea how much restraint she's already shown in not simply shoving him up against the nearest hard surface and having her way with him multiple times this past year, he might understand.

“Sorry,” she says, even though she isn’t. Her heart is still racing and she's tingling all over. If one kiss can do this to her, this bodes very, very well for the future.

“Are you? Cause I’m not.” He smirks a little, and she wants to be annoyed with his smugness, but can’t seem to muster up the force of will.

“By the way, I love you too,” he whispers. “I think that’s already been established, but you deserved to hear it properly.” He leans in for one last tender peck on her lips, and then regretfully pulls away again. Slowly, their bubble melts away, and the rest of the world comes back. She can hear people and machines on the other side of the door. Reality is waiting for them. Oh so reluctantly, she shakes off her delightful post-kiss haze and finally opens the door. And just like they always do, they run, side by side.

* * *

They make it to the meeting with seconds to spare. Brantley squints suspiciously at Max’s crumpled collar, and Helen’s messy hair, but uncharacteristically says nothing. It doesn’t really matter anyway, as she’s soon distracted when Max throws the whole thing into chaos as usual with his new ideas for community outreach that will cost a fortune but help thousands.

For her part, Helen just sits there, half-listening, and half reliving those precious few minutes in the stairwell. She woke up this morning with no idea that by the end of the day, she would have kissed Max Goodwin. Who _loves_ her. After wanting him for so long, in the blink of an eye, she’s got him.

He’s hers. She can’t quite believe it.

Under cover of Brantley’s rant about financial responsibility and donors and general questioning of Max’s sanity, he sends her a text message.

_“Can I take you out tonight?”_

It’s considerably harder for her to text him back without reprimand, as the board has simply given up trying to get him to stop, but they hold her to a higher standard of behavior. She thinks they were hoping she’ll be a good influence on Max, when in truth, the exact opposite is true. He reminded her how it good it feels to shake things up, to fight. She feels she’s become a better person just by knowing him.

Distraction comes in the shape of the sandwiches they’ve ordered for lunch. Max immediately asks why there’s money to spare for refreshments for a two-hour meeting but not for his outreach program, and then he and Brantley are off again. As the rest of the room attempts to get a word in edgewise, she sends him a reply.

_“I’m all yours."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I appreciate your kudos and comments, it's such a joy to know people enjoy what I write.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your feedback if you care to leave it. The second chapter is basically a missing scene of what happened between Helen and Max that got them to the last scene. Catherine doesn't get to know the details, but you do!


End file.
